Cruz got up and gave the president his views for a minute or so. The president seemed to bite his tongue, according to one participant. Back at the Capitol, Cruz reiterated for reporters his ongoing opposition to Obamacare.

“The first step is for the president to come to the table. We began talking – that was good – today,” he said. “But he continued to maintain that he will not negotiate or compromise on anything and if that is the position that is not going to lead to a resolution.”

Cruz said that any resolution that doesn't “provide substantial relief to the millions of people who are hurting because of Obamacare” would not suffice, in his view. Other GOP lawmakers have backed away from Obamacare-related demands, though tweaks to the law may be part of a final deal.

update at 1:15pm ET: Republican senators left the White House in the rain, more than 90 minutes after the meeting started. It was pouring rain and they left without talking with reporters. Cruz got in the same bus as McCain.

WASHINGTON — Not for the first time nor, if his ambitions come to pass, for the last, Sen. Ted Cruz entered the White House moments ago.

Senate Republicans are meeting with President Barack Obama to talk about the budget showdown, the government shutdown, and the Oct. 17 debt ceiling cap. Cruz has met the president before, and he's been at the White House before, aides say. But the eyes of the White House press corps are on the junior senator from Texas, who is widely blamed/credited for instigating the shutdown by pressing so hard with demands to defund the president's signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

The meeting is closed to journalists. We can only hope the official White House photographers capture the interaction between the president and his Texas nemesis.

At the Values Voter Summit earlier today, Cruz got hoots and hollers when he mentioned his next stop.

“So after leaving here, I’m going to be going to the White House,” he said. “I will make a request: If I’m never seen again, please send a search and rescue team. I very much hope tomorrow morning I don’t wake up amidst the Syrian rebels.”

An Austin resident was recognized at the White House on Tuesday for helping mobilize 5,000 volunteers in the Austin area and working to collect excess food from restaurants and caterers to distribute it to charities.

George Luc, 31, was honored through the White House’s Champions of Change program, which recognizes those who have a positive impact on their community. Luc was nominated along with other “civic hackers” – defined as those who use technology skills for the public good.

Luc was honored as a co-founder of GivePulse, an app that matches potential volunteers with charities and volunteer events in Austin, including Keep Austin Fed, which works with food producing organizations and businesses to give healthy leftover food to local charities. Through the app, users can sign up for a volunteering opportunity. Since the app’s launch in late February, 5,000 volunteers have signed up for more than 100,000 service hours in the city.

Luc said he is planning to further test the app in Detroit before bring it to Dallas and Houston.

As the fiscal cliff stalemate continues, so does the drumbeat from President Obama arguing the case for higher tax rates for the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers. The White House has issued state-specific studies on the effects the fiscal cliff would have on middle class Americans. In Texas, 8.7 million middle class families would see higher federal income taxes if no deal is cut to maintain current middle class rates.

“There is no reason to hold Texas’s middle-class hostage while we debate tax cuts for the
wealthy; or roughly 2 percent of Texas families,” the White House says as part of its latest pressure tactic.

More highlights from the report from the National Economic Council:

“If the House of Representatives fails to extend the middle-class tax cuts:

• A typical median-income Texas family of four (earning $65,900) could see its income taxes rise by $2,200 as a result of losing the combination of the expanded child credit, marriage penalty relief, and the 10 percent bracket.

• Texas families will receive a smaller Child Tax Credit, and 3,391,000 of low- and moderate income working families with children in Texas will lose access to the Child Tax Credit altogether, costing them an average $1,010 a year.

• 963,000 middle-class Texas families will no longer get help paying for college from the American Opportunity Tax Credit.

• Texas small businesses will be able to claim immediate tax deductions for only $25,000, rather than $250,000, of new investment.”

Erskine Bowles, who co-chaired the Simpson-Bowles debt reduction panel in 2010 and is an influential force in the fight over the future of federal spending on programs like Medicare, said today that a deal on the fiscal cliff must include higher tax rates on the wealthy to get the White House’s support.

Raising more tax revenue remains a sticking point in negotiations between Republicans and Democrats. As we reported today, Republicans have moved in recent weeks toward what they view as a compromise — raising revenue by curbing tax breaks but not raising rates. Republicans say this is a concession on their part, but they are not willing to let the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire at year’s end.

Bowles, a Democrat and former president of the University of North Carolina, said reform of tax breaks should be part of a deficit-reduction solution. But the White House views the GOP offer as too complicated to succeed, because many interest groups would swarm the Capitol to block efforts to roll back tax breaks that benefit their industries.

Obama “has a real reason why he wants to see the increase in rates,” Bowles said at a breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “That’s sure revenue. He’s afraid when you get to the Congress and talk about reducing tax expenditures, that you’ll see people come in and every university like mine say oh my God, you are going to take away the charitable deduction and the like.”

Alan Simpson, a former Republican Senator and Bowles’ co-chair on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, joined him at the breakfast roundtable.

Bowles said President Barack Obama is “flexible” on the level to which tax rates must rise for the wealthy. The solution could include curbing tax breaks for high earners (which is tantamount to a tax hike), but must include raising rates above the current 33 and 35 percent for higher earners.

“I do not think you’ll get a deal unless you are willing to raise rates to some degree to be part of a deal,” he said. “I think the White House is firm on that. I think that is a red line in the sand and I don’t think they will do a deal that doesn’t have some increase in rates on the wealthy.”

Lynda Johnson Robb, right, speaks during the Enduring Legacies of America’s First Ladies conference as she is joined on stage by, from left to right, Barbara Pierce Bush, Jenna Bush Hager and Steve Ford, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012, in Austin, Texas. The children of three presidents discussed life in the White House as part of a conference on first ladies at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library.

AUSTIN — Audiences were treated on Thursday to some untold stories from four children of former presidents.

Twins Barbara Bush and Jenna Bush Hager, Lynda Johnson Robb, daughter of former President Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson, and Steve Ford, son of Betty and former President Gerald Ford shared White House secrets during a panel at the LBJ Presidential Library.

One fun fact came from the Bush twins in response to the moderator’s request for a “shocking story about a first lady.”

AP Photo/David J. Phillip

Barbara Pierce Bush, left, laughs with her sister Jenna Bush Hager, right,as they take part in the Enduring Legacies of America’s First Ladies conference.

“People did think our mom was this cookie cutter mother … she just happens to not shout and I think that’s why people saw her as more conservative than she is,” said Jenna Bush Hager. “But she’s a secret Rastafarian.”

Anyone hoping to see Laura Bush in dreadlocks, don’t hold your breath — they were referring to her love of Bob Marley.

The panel was part of the Enduring Legacies of America’s First Ladies conference, the final of three conferences held in Texas presidential libraries.

Robb said one of her favorite memories came on the 200th anniversary of the White House when she was surrounded by many first families who had all lost elections.

“We all are a large sorority, fraternity, whatever, because no matter how you might differ on any issue, we’ve all been there,” she said.

An enduring theme was the love the presidents felt for their families and especially their wives.

Robb said when her mother, Lady Bird Johnson, was tied up at presidential meetings, her father would get the White House communications staff to tape “Gunsmoke” for her.

“This was the 1960′s and they hadn’t invented that yet, but they would somehow tape “Gunsmoke” for mother so she could watch it,” Robb said.

For all of the White House children, their time spent growing up in the public eye also offered a chance to travel and socialize with leaders of different fields. Each cited their time there as a driving factor for what they decided to pursue as adults.

There were other perks too.

With some help, Steve Ford dragged his stereo up to the roof of the White House to play Led Zeppelin. On that same roof, Jenna Bush had her first kiss with now husband Henry Hager.

The Ford’s came to the White House as replacements, not elected by the American people. For the first week of Gerald Ford’s presidency, they lived in their family home while remnants of the Nixon’s were moved out.

“I remember Mom is cooking dinner and looks over at my dad and says ‘Gerry something’s wrong here. You just became President of the United States and I’m still cooking,” Steve Ford said.

In the end, the general tone was one of bipartisanship, something Jenna Bush noted we don’t see much of anymore.

“All of these people are our parents, not politicians,” she said.

Check out the cool First Ladies ruler I got — follow me on Twitter @ClaireZCardona

WASHINGTON – United Way Dallas CEO and President Jennifer Sampson joined government officials and dozens of nonprofits and community leaders from around the country Monday at a White House discussion aimed at addressing long-rooted problems such as poverty in growing cities.

“We want to learn from each other – those who are driving social change in their communities in new and innovative ways to invest in collective impact,” Sampson said, adding that she was excited to hear new ideas from participants.

Sampson received the invitation less than a week ago to the White House Forum on Urban Innovation, hosted by the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation and the Office of Urban Affairs and Economic Mobility. It was her first invitation to the White House. She said the Dallas United Way chapter was chosen because of its efforts to find new ways to push solutions to three core targets — education, financial stability and health, including a new social innovation fund that will be launched in 2013.

The organization was also a finalist for a social innovation grant in 2011.

“We’re pleased to be representing North Texas and the state of Texas overall as a leader in this area and honored to be a participant in this event today,” she said.

Four other United Way chapters were invited, along with mayors and leaders from other nonprofit groups, such as Angela Blanchard, president and CEO of Houston-based Neighborhood Centers.

“Creating lasting change in our under-resourced communities is hard and it’s difficult but worth it,” Blanchard said, according to a Tweet from the CEO of another nonprofit, 826 National.

“We are speaking with federal policymakers through the different White House groups who will be there today so that we can talk about ways to support each other’s endeavors,” Sampson said.

The forum was closed to the news media. According to tweets from participants, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz and Senior Advisor to President Obama Valerie Jarrett spoke at one panel.

Sampson said she hopes to take back lessons from the event for her community.

“We want to replicate those models that have the best outcomes in Dallas and North Texas,” she said.

The survey — conducted May 29-31, when Bush returned to the White House for the unveiling of his official portrait — shows that 43 percent of those questioned have a favorable opinion of the Texan, while 54 percent say they have an unfavorable view.

The poll, which has an error margin of plus-minus three percentage points, also shows that 47 percent of those surveyed feel they are better off than four years ago “when Bush was president,” compared to 41 percent who say they are worse off.

“We knew our economy was in trouble, our fellow Americans were in pain, but we wouldn’t know until later just how breathtaking the financial crisis had been,” Obama said at the May 31 event.

But there is a silver lining for Bush — who’s largely stayed out of politics since leaving office and instead focused on his presidential center that’s set to open on SMU’s campus next spring.

The former president’s ratings are an improvement over the mid-30s favorable ratings he held in early 2009. And some prominent Republicans, including the prohibitive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, have started defending Bush’s legacy in a more vocal way.